Punic Wars - Ancient History - HISTORY.com Google Background and First Punic War (264-241 B.C.) Tradition holds that Phoenician settlers from the Mediterranean port of Tyre (in what is now Lebanon) founded the city-state of Carthage on the northern coast of Africa, just north of modern-day Tunis, around 814 B.C. (The word “Punic,” later the name for the series of wars between Carthage and Rome, was derived from the Latin word for Phoenician.) By 265 B.C., Carthage was the wealthiest and most advanced city in the region, as well as its leading naval power. Though Carthage had clashed violently with several other powers in the region, notably Greece, its relations with Rome were historically friendly, and the cities had signed several treaties defining trading rights over the years. Did You Know? The Greek historian Polybius, one of the main sources of information about the Punic Wars, was born around 200 B.C. A friend of and mentor to Scipio Aemilianus, he was an eyewitness to the siege and destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C.

In 264 B.C., Rome decided to intervene in a dispute on the western coast of the island of Sicily (then a Carthaginian province) involving an attack by soldiers from the city of Syracuse against the city of Messina. While Carthage supported Syracuse, Rome supported Messina, and the struggle soon exploded into a direct conflict between the two powers, with control of Sicily at stake. Over the course of nearly 20 years, Rome rebuilt its entire fleet in order to confront Carthage’s powerful navy, scoring its first sea victory at Mylae in 260 B.C. and a major victory in the Battle of Ecnomus in 256 B.C. Though its invasion of North Africa that same year ended in defeat, Rome refused to give up, and in 241 B.C. the Roman fleet was able to win a decisive victory against the Carthaginians at sea, breaking their legendary naval superiority. At the end of the First Punic War, Sicily became Rome’s first overseas province.

Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.) Over the next decades, Rome took over control of both Corsica and Sardinia as well, but Carthage was able to establish a new base of influence in Spain beginning in 237 B.C., under the leadership of the powerful general Hamilcar Barca and, later, his son-in-law Hasdrubal. According to Polybius and Livy in their histories of Rome, Hamilcar Barca, who died in 229 B.C., made his younger son Hannibal swear a blood oath against Rome when he was just a young boy. Upon Hasdrubal’s death in 221 B.C., Hannibal took command of Carthaginian forces in Spain. Two years later, he marched his army across the Ebro River into Saguntum, an Iberian city under Roman protection, effectively declaring war on Rome.

The Second Punic War saw Hannibal and his troops–including as many as 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and a number of elephants–march from Spain across the Alps and into Italy, where they scored a string of victories over Roman troops at Ticinus, Trebia and Trasimene. Hannibal’s daring invasion of Rome reached its height at Cannae in 216 B.C., where he used his superior cavalry to surround a Roman army twice the size of his own and inflict massive casualties. After this disastrous defeat, however, the Romans managed to rebound, and the Carthaginians lost hold in Italy as Rome won victories in Spain and North Africa under the rising young general Publius Cornelius Scipio (later known as Scipio Africanus). In 203 B.C., Hannibal’s forces were forced to abandon the struggle in Italy in order to defend North Africa, and the following year Scipio’s army routed the Carthaginians at Zama.

Hannibal’s losses in the Second Punic War effectively put an end to Carthage’s empire in the western Mediterranean, leaving Rome in control of Spain and allowing Carthage to retain only its territory in North Africa. Carthage was also forced to give up its fleet and pay a large indemnity to Rome in silver. Third Punic War (149-146 B.C.) The Third Punic War, by far the most controversial of the three conflicts between Rome and Carthage, was the result of efforts by Cato the Elder and other hawkish members of the Roman Senate to convince their colleagues that Carthage (even in its weakened state) was a continuing threat to Rome’s supremacy in the region. In 149 B.C., after Carthage technically broke its treaty with Rome by declaring war against the neighboring state of Numidia, the Romans sent an army to North Africa, beginning the Third Punic War. Carthage withstood the Roman siege for two years before a change of Roman command put the young general Scipio Aemilianus (later known as Scipio the Younger) in charge of the North Africa campaign in 147 B.C.

After tightening the Roman positions around Carthage, Aemilianus launched a forceful attack on its harbor side in the spring of 146 B.C., pushing into the city and destroying house after house while pushing enemy troops towards their citadel. After seven days of horrific bloodshed, the Carthaginians surrendered, obliterating an ancient city that had survived for some 700 years. The surviving 50,000 citizens of Carthage were sold into slavery. Also in 146 B.C., Roman troops moved east to defeat King Philip V of Macedonia in the Macedonian Wars, and by year’s end Rome reigned supreme over an empire stretching from the Atlantic coast of Spain to the border between Greece and Asia Minor (now Turkey). Tags Second Punic War, Hannibal vs. Rome First Punic War | Second Punic War | Third Punic War At the end of the First Punic War , in 241 B.C., Carthage agreed to pay a steep tribute to Rome, but depleting the coffers wasn't enough to devastate the north African nation of traders and merchants: Rome and Carthage would soon fight again.

In the interim between the First and Second Punic Wars (also known as the Hannibalic War), the Phoenician hero and military leader Hamilcar Barca conquered much of Spain, while Rome took Corsica. Hamilcar longed to get revenge against the Romans for the defeat in Punic War I, but realizing that wasn't to be, he taught hatred of Rome to his son, Hannibal . Hannibal - Second Punic War General The Second Punic War broke out in 218 when Hannibal took control of the Greek city and Roman ally, Saguntum (in Spain). Rome thought it would be easy to defeat Hannibal, but Hannibal was full of surprises, including his manner of entering the Italic peninsula from Spain. continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States Leaving 20,000 troops with his brother Hasdrubal, Hannibal went further north on the Rhone River than the Romans expected and crossed the river with his elephants on flotation devices. He didn't have as much manpower as the Romans, but he counted on the support and alliance of Italian tribes unhappy with Rome. Hannibal reached the Po Valley with less than half his men.

He had also encountered unexpected resistance from local tribes, although he did manage to recruit Gauls. This meant he had 30,000 troops by the time he met the Romans in battle. Hannibal's Greatest Second Punic War Victory: The Battle of Cannae (216 B.C.) Hannibal won battles in Trebia and at Lake Trasimene, and then continued through the Apennine Mountains that run down through much of Italy like a spine. With troops from Gaul and Spain on his side, Hannibal won another battle, at Cannae, against Lucius Aemilius. At the Battle of Cannae , the Romans lost thousands of troops, including their leader. The historian Polybius describes both sides as gallant.

He writes about the substantial losses: "Of the infantry ten thousand were taken prisoners in fair fight, but were not actually engaged in the battle: of those who were actually engaged only about three thousand perhaps escaped to the towns of the surrounding district; all the rest died nobly, to the number of seventy thousand, the Carthaginians being on this occasion, as on previous ones, mainly indebted for their victory to their superiority in cavalry: a lesson to posterity that in actual war it is better to have half the number of infantry, and the superiority in cavalry, than to engage your enemy with an equality in both. On the side of Hannibal there fell four thousand Celts, fifteen hundred Iberians and Libyans, and about two hundred horse." Polybius - The Battle of Cannae 216 B.C . Besides trashing the countryside (which both sides did in an effort to starve the enemy), Hannibal terrorized the towns of southern Italy in an effort to gain allies. Chronologically, Rome's First Macedonian War fits in around here (215-205). Hannibal allied himself with Philip V of Macedonia.

The next general to confront Hannibal was more successful; that is, there was no decisive victory. However, the senate in Carthage refused to send in enough troops to enable Hannibal to win. So Hannibal turned to his brother Hasdrubal for help. Unfortunately for Hannibal, Hasdrubal was killed en route to join him, marking the first decisive Roman victory in the Second Punic War . More than 10,000 Carthaginians died at the Battle of Metaurus in 207 B.C. Scipio - Second Punic War General Meanwhile, Scipio invaded North Africa. The Carthaginian Senate responded by recalling Hannibal. The Romans under Scipio fought the Phoenicians under Hannibal at Zama . Hannibal, who no longer had an adequate cavalry, was unable to follow his preferred tactics. Instead, Scipio routed the Carthaginians using the same ( strategy Hannibal had used at Cannae. Hannibal put an end to the Second Punic War.

Scipio's stringent terms of surrender were to: hand over all warships and elephants not make war without permission of Rome pay Rome 10,000 talents over the next 50 years. The terms included an additional, difficult proviso: should armed Carthaginians cross a border the Romans drew in the dirt, it automatically meant war with Rome. This meant that the Carthaginians could be put in a position where they might not be able to defend their own interests. Why did Rome destroy Carthage? - Quora Quora Written Dec 20, 2014 Dave Hines answer has the gist of it from a grand-strategy point of view. On the psychological level, the Roman's believed that the Carthaginians were subjects, not a foreign power: the Roman view was that the surrender after the second Punic war had made Carthage into a client state whose duty was to take orders. Clients were believed to have a duty towards their patrons/conquerors, and failing to follow the wishes of the patrons was not just interstate politics but more like treason. This partly explains the vindictiveness from a Roman perspective, even if it hardly excuses it from ours.

There is also the fact that Rome was fighting the Fourth Macedonian War at the same time. From the Roman perspective both of these wars seemed like treachery: defeated enemies who were refusing to remains subordinate were a very scary thing to the Romans, who depended on a complex network of subject people to man their armies and secure their positions. They were far more savage in punishing "faithless" "allies" than defeated enemies: it's not a coincidence that the Romans also levelled Corinth in the same year (146) as Carthage. The twin destructions of Carthage and Corinth also reflect the fact that Rome was beginning to realize that it was the dominant power in the Mediterranean world. The Third Macedonian War , a generation earlier, shattered the power of Rome's major rival to the east, just as the defeat of Carthage gave Rome a free hand in the West.

The lack of serious opposition seems to have done something to the Roman psyche: It's pretty clear that Polybius, who was a first hand witness to the whole saga, felt that the older generation of Romans were very different than the generation that took Corinth and Carthage: he tacked 10 more several books on to his history to follow events after the battle of Pydna, which made Rome 'mistress of the world' - and as those books go on he becomes notably more critical of Roman character and behavior, in contrast to the admiration he showed in the first part of the book.. Written Dec 20, 2014 Kart Hadesh was a metropolis, an economic competitor. Its shipping capabilities were unrivalled in the western Mediterranean. Though founded by Phoenicians, it had attracted numerous immigrants from various cultures. It may be difficult for moderns to grasp how cosmopolitan the city was. As befits its Phoenician origin, the port facilities were capacious and well designed. Its location was advantageous for travel in several directions. The Roman model was built upon hegemony rather than mere trade.

In Italia its citizens dispersed in Roman colonies had trade and other advantages over Latin colonies, which in turn had advantages over the general populace. This somewhat resembles later mercantilist systems. In mercantilist systems competent rivals are seen as national threats. Carthage was resilient. Like the Phoenix, it kept rising from the ashes. After its defeat in the First Punic War it expanded into new territories, notably Iberia with its abundant mineral resources. After the Second it was severely constrained, but could still quite effectively trade as it had done for centuries. Cato the Elder, for one, was certain that the rival would rise again. He ended every speech in the Senate, whatever the topic, with the addendum "Furthermore it is my opinion that Carthage must be destroyed." It is likely that without the Third Punic War (essentially a demolition project opposed by a desperate and disarmed populace) it will have risen again. After destroying Carthage and ritually salting the earth, the Romans found it desirous to rebuild the city as a colony for its own shipping needs. Grain from the hinterland of Carthage and from Egypt was important to Rome, and the strategic location of the port could not be denied.

It did rise again, in a way, when the Vandals took it and raided the western Mediterranean from that base. Punic Wars - Ancient History Encyclopedia Punic Wars by Joshua J. Mark published on 20 December 2011 The Punic Wars were a series of conflicts fought between the forces of ancient Carthage and Rome between 264 BCE and 146 BCE. The name Punic comes from the word Phoenician (Phoinix in the Greek , Poenus from Punicus in Latin) as applied to the citizens of Carthage, who were of Phoenician ethnicity. As the history of the conflict was written by Roman authors, they labeled it 'The Punic Wars'. Carthage grew from a small port-of-call to the richest and most powerful city in the Mediterranean region before 260 BCE. She had a powerful navy, a mercenary army and, through tribute, tariffs, and trade, enough wealth to do as she pleased. Through a treaty with the small city of Rome, she barred Roman trade in the Western Mediterranean and, as Rome had no navy, was able to easily enforce the treaty. Roman traders caught in Carthaginian waters were drowned and their ships taken.

First Punic War As long as Rome remained the little city of trade by the Tiber River, Carthage reigned supreme; but the island of Sicily would be the flashpoint for growing Roman resentment of the Carthaginians. Sicily lay partly under Carthaginian and partly under Roman control. When Heiro II of neighboring Syracuse fought against the Mamertines of Messina, the Mamertines asked first Carthage and then Rome for help. The Carthaginians had already agreed to help and felt betrayed by the Mamertines’ appeal to Rome. They changed sides, sending forces to Hiero II. The Romans fought for the Mamertines of Messina and, in 264 BCE, Rome and Carthage declared war on each other for the control of Sicily. Advertisement In 264 BCE, Rome and Carthage declared war on each other for the control of Sicily. Although Rome had no navy and knew nothing of sea battles, they swiftly built and equipped 330 ships.

As they were far more used to fighting land battles, they devised the clever device of the corvus, a moveable gangplank, which could be attached to an enemy’s ship and held in place with hooks. By immobilizing the other ship, and attaching it to their own, the Romans could manipulate a sea engagement through the strategies of a land battle . Even so, they lacked the expertise at sea of the Carthaginians and, more importantly, were lacking a general with the skill of the Carthaginian Hamilcar Barca . Hamilcar was surnamed Barca (meaning `lightning’) because of his speed in attacking anywhere and the suddenness of the action. He struck without warning up and down the coast of Italy destroying Roman outposts and cutting supply lines. Had the Carthaginian government better supplied and reinforced Hamilcar, they most probably would have won the war but, instead, they contented themselves with hoarding their wealth and trusted to Hamilcar and his mercenaries to take care of the war. He defeated the Romans at Drepana in 249 BCE but then was forced to withdraw due to a lack of man power and supplies.

According to the historian Durant, “Worn out almost equally, the two nations rested for nine years. But while in those years Carthage did nothing…a number of Roman citizens voluntarily presented to the state a fleet of 200 men-of-war, carrying 60,000 troops.” The Romans, more experienced at sea battles now and better equipped and led, won a series of decisive victories over Carthage and in 241 BCE the Carthaginians sued for peace. This war was costly to both sides but Carthage suffered more seriously owing to the corruption and incompetence of her government (which embezzled funds which should have gone to the military and consistently refused to send much needed supplies and reinforcements to generals in the field), the mostly mercenary army (who often simply refused to fight), and an over-reliance on the brilliance of Hamilcar Barca. Further, however, they seriously underestimated their enemy. While Carthage would largely ignore the war, leaving the fighting to Hamilcar and his mercenaries, Rome would be building and equipping more ships and training more men.

Even though Rome had never had a navy before the First Punic War, they emerged in 241 BCE as masters of the sea and Carthage was a defeated city. Remove Ads Advertisement During the war, the Carthaginian government had repeatedly failed to pay its mercenary army and, also in 241 BCE, these mercenaries laid siege to the city. Hamilcar Barca was called upon to raise the siege and did so, even though Carthage had refused him the much needed supplies and reinforcements on his campaigns on her behalf and he had led most of these mercenaries in battle himself. The Mercenary War lasted from 241-237 BCE and, while Carthage was engaged in this conflict, Rome occupied the Carthaginian colonies of Sardinia and Corsica. While Carthage was unhappy with this development, there was little they could do about it. They concentrated their efforts on the conquest of Spain rather than trying to drive the Romans out of their former colonies.

In 226 BCE the Ebro Treaty was signed between Carthage and Rome agreeing that the Romans would hold Spanish territory north of the Ebro River, Carthage would hold the area they had already conquered south of the river, and neither nation would cross the boundary. Second Punic War To the south of the border lay the city of Saguntum , a Roman ally, and, in 219 BCE, the great Carthaginian general Hannibal (Hamilcar’s son) lay siege to the city and took it. The Romans objected to this attack and demanded that Carthage deliver Hannibal to Rome. The Carthaginian senate refused to comply and so began the Second Punic War (218-202 BCE). Remove Ads Advertisement Hannibal, a sworn enemy of Rome, received intelligence that Roman armies were moving against him and, in a bold gamble, marched his forces over the Alps and into northern Italy. Hannibal then proceeded to win every single engagement against the Romans, conquering northern Italy and gathering former allies of Rome to his side.

Having lost many of his elephants on his march over the mountains, and lacking necessary siege engines and troops, Hannibal was caught in southern Italy in a cat and mouse game with the Roman army under Quintus Fabius Maximus. Fabius refused to engage Hannibal directly relying, instead, on cutting off his supplies and starving his army. Fabius’ strategy might have worked had not the Romans become impatient with their legions’ inactivity. Further, Hannibal used counter-intelligence to reinforce and spread the rumor that Fabius refused to fight because he was in the pay of the Carthaginians. Fabius was replaced by Caius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paulus who threw off caution and led their troops against Hannibal in the region of Apulia. At the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, Hannibal placed his Gauls in the center of his lines, expecting they would give way before the Roman forces. When they did exactly that, and the Romans pressed what they saw as an advantage and followed them, Hannibal closed from behind and the sides, enveloping the Roman forces and crushing them.

44,000 Roman soldiers died at Cannae compared with 6000 of Hannibal’s forces. Hannibal won his greatest victory but could not build upon it as Carthage refused to send him the reinforcements and supplies he needed. Shortly after this, the Roman general, Publius Cornelius Scipio (later known as Scipio Africanus , who had fought against Hannibal at Cannae) was defeating the Carthaginian forces in Spain (under Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal). Recognizing that Hannibal’s army would be recalled if Carthage were attacked, Scipio manned a fleet and sailed to North Africa where he took the Carthaginian city of Utica . Carthage recalled Hannibal from Italy to save their city but Scipio was a great admirer of Hannibal and had studied his tactics carefully. At the Battle of Zama in 202, Hannibal sent an elephant charge against the Romans which Scipio, mindful of Hannibal’s strategies, deflected easily.

The Romans killed the Carthaginians on the elephants and sent the animals back into the Carthaginian ranks, then followed with a combined cavalry charge and infantry advance which caught the enemy between and crushed them. Hannibal returned to the city and told the senate that Carthage should immediately surrender. Scipio allowed Carthage to retain her colonies in Africa but she had to surrender her navy and was not allowed to make war under any circumstances without Rome’s approval. Carthage was also to pay Rome a war debt of 200 talents every year for fifty years. Carthage was, again, a defeated city but, retaining its trading ships and ten warships to protect them, was able to struggle on and begin to prosper. The Carthaginian government, however, still as corrupt and selfish as it had always been, taxed the people heavily to help pay the war debt while they, themselves, contributed nothing. Hannibal came out of retirement to try to rectify the situation, was betrayed by the rich Carthaginians to the Romans, and fled. He died by his own hand, drinking poison, in 184, aged sixty-seven.

The Second Punic War | Dickinson College Commentaries Chapter 13 Second Punic War (218-201 BC) In 219 BC, Hannibal laid siege to Saguntum , a coastal city in northeast Hispania that enjoyed a long-standing treaty of friendship with Rome. In 226 BC, however, Hasdrubal the Fair signed a treaty with Rome that acknowledged Carthage's control of Hispania south of the Ebro River. Saguntum's status, therefore, was ambiguous: was it an ally of Rome or a ward of Carthage? When the besieged Saguntines appealed to Rome, Rome pressured the Carthaginians to recognize their alliance with Saguntum. Even as the Romans attempted to negotiate a settlement to the crisis, Hannibal captured the city after an eight-month siege. When Carthage refused Roman demands for Hannibal's extradition, both sides prepared for war. Rome and Carthage enjoyed different military advantages than they had during the last war. Hannibal now fielded the best-trained and equipped army in the ancient world; the Romans enjoyed complete naval superiority, which they could use to invade Carthaginian territory at will.

Rome expected to exploit this advantage to wage a quick, offensive war that would compel Carthage to sue for peace on Rome's terms. Hannibal, however, had a plan to restore Carthage's supremacy in the western Mediterranean. First, he would neutralize Rome's advantage at sea through a daring invasion of Italy across the Alps. Hannibal correctly saw that the presence of a foreign army in Italy would compel the Romans to abandon their planned assault on Carthage. Once across the Alps, Hannibal planned to recruit soldiers from the recently conquered regions of northern and southern Italy and convince other kingdoms in the East to join forces against Rome. At the head of this combined force, Hannibal would cut at the roots of Roman military power by disrupting the intricate web of alliances that bound the cities and peoples of Italy to Rome. It is important to note that Hannibal's goal at the start of the war was not to destroy the city or exterminate the Romans, despite the claims made by later Roman authors. Hannibal assumed that a few decisive victories in Italy would compel Rome to negotiate a new peace treaty on terms favorable to Carthage.

At the least, he thought he could win a restoration of Carthaginian holdings in Sicily and Sardinia and a recognition of their empire in Hispania. Roman resolve, however, would again surprise the Carthaginians. At the start of the war, the Romans assumed that Hannibal, whose army was in constant danger of being outflanked by sea, would seek to protect Carthage's hard-won territory in northern Hispania. The Roman strategy assumed that one army would pin Hannibal down in Hispania, freeing another to invade the Carthaginian homeland in Africa. But Hannibal, ever bold, seized the initiative and marched towards Italy with a large army. He evaded the first Roman army sent against him and arrived at the Alps in late 218 BC with 38,000 infantry troops, 8,000 cavalrymen, and 37 war elephants. The brutal march over the mountains in the early winter cost Hannibal nearly a third of his army and most of his irreplaceable elephants. But his gamble worked. He was able to lead an intact army into Italy.

Hannibal then won a cavalry engagement at Ticinus and forced the Romans to withdraw south of the Padus River . Facing an enemy army in Italy, the Romans recalled the forces that were being marshaled for the planned invasion of Africa. Hannibal had succeeded in forestalling the invasion of Carthage. His audacity had gained him the chance to win the war in Italy. In quick succession, Hannibal inflicted two crushing defeats on a stunned and unprepared Rome. At Trebia , 30,000 freezing Roman soldiers were lured into an ambush and killed [ Trebia Battle Schematic ]. Hannibal then crossed the Padus River into central Italy. Despite the shocking defeat, Rome refused to negotiate terms with the invader. In 217, the two consuls raised a new army and led it against Hannibal. At Lake Trasimene , Hannibal again demonstrated his mastery of battlefield tactics when the consul Gaius Flaminius Nepos and more than 40,000 soldiers were ambushed on the narrow path along the shore of the lake. Nearly all of the Roman soldiers in Flaminius' army were either killed or captured [ Trasimene Battle Schematic ].

After this second disaster, Rome was seized by panic and memories of the Gallic Sack of 390 BC. But still the Romans refused to surrender or even negotiate an exchange of prisoners. Instead, Fabius Maximus was elected dictator and invested with unlimited power to confront the threat to Rome. Unlike his impetuous colleagues, Fabius accurately assessed the tactical and strategic situation facing Rome. Fabius realized that Hannibal's decisive advantage in cavalry forces made it too risky to engage him in a large-scale battle on level ground. He also recognized that Rome's superior manpower would eventually yield victory, provided that he could thwart Hannibal's strategic goal of separating Rome from her Italian allies. Fabius therefore avoided a direct confrontation with Hannibal's forces. He focused instead on protecting Rome's allies and wearing down Hannibal's army through small raids. This "Fabian" tactic of avoiding decisive battle spared Rome's soldiers and preserved Rome's alliances, but his caution lost him favor among the more aggressive-minded Roman senators who were eager to confront Hannibal, as well as many other Roman citizens whose property was being destroyed by Hannibal's army. Unchecked, Hannibal ranged throughout Italy, eventually destroying 400 towns and capturing several large cities.

In the face of such devastation, two new consuls were elected on the promise to make short work of Hannibal. Under the burning summer sky, the largest army that Rome would ever field within Italy marched to crush what they saw as Hannibal's gaggle of barbarians. Outside of the strategic town of Cannae , however, Hannibal annihilated both consular armies: as many as 70,000 Romans and allies were butchered in a single afternoon—among the worst defeats ever suffered by Rome, or indeed by any army. Rome's allies began to waver as Hannibal's successes mounted. Several major cities revolted, as did large swaths of southern Italy. Soon after Cannae, another army was destroyed while attempting to pacify a Gallic tribe that had defected to Hannibal. Hannibal's army and his allies had killed upwards of 175,000 Roman and Italian soldiers in just over 20 months. At this moment, Philip of Macedon agreed to open a second front against Roman interests in Illyria. By almost any reckoning, Hannibal had won the war. Rome's power base had been reduced to central Italy and Sicily.

It had lost the core of its army and a large portion of its military and political aristocracy, its allies were abandoning it, and rival powers were beginning to line up behind Hannibal, who must have thought he was on the verge of victory. Yet even in the face of these manifold disasters, Rome rejected even the thought of peace on Hannibal's terms. It banned public displays of mourning, refused to negotiate, and began recruiting new armies. Improbably, the war had only just begun. In this moment of crisis, Rome resumed the Fabian strategy. Decisive battles were avoided whenever possible, allies were protected, disloyal or captured cities were slowly re-conquered. The Romans deployed their fleet to limit reinforcements from Philip of Macedon or Carthage. They used clever diplomacy to enmesh Philip in a costly and distracting war in Greece. With the immediate crisis averted, Rome's superiority in manpower and organization eventually began to turn the tide. During the decade from 215 to 205 BC Rome fielded as many as seven and never fewer than four two-legion armies every year in Italy.

At its peak mobilization in 212 BC, Rome fielded 25 legions and a massive fleet with over 200,000 men, which it used to conduct simultaneous operations from Hispania to Africa to the Aegean. Hannibal, who was never able to field more than three large armies at a time, was thus constantly made to react to Roman operations against his new Italian allies. In 211, Hannibal at last marched against Rome. It would be more than 600 years before a foreign army would again marshal outside of Rome's gates. Even so, Hannibal was incapable of sustaining a prolonged siege against the well-defended city. This move was only a diversionary tactic to forestall a Roman expedition to Africa. By 209, Rome had retaken most of the cities in Italy and begun to make inroads against Carthaginian territory in Hispania. Hannibal, however, still hoped to win the war. A decade of continual war had wrecked the Italian economy. Rome's allies were exhausted and eager for peace. Even the Latin cities, Rome's staunchest allies, refused new levies, claiming that no men remained in their towns.

At this crucial juncture Hannibal suffered three disastrous setbacks. First his brother Hasdrubal, who was attempting to reinforce Hannibal by land, was killed and his army destroyed at Metaurus in 207. Then Scipio Africanus completed the conquest of Hispania in 206. Finally, a large resupply fleet from Carthage was destroyed in 205. Hannibal's daring gambit—his attempt to destroy Rome's alliances before its superior resources and population could provide it with a decisive advantage—had failed. When Roman forces began operating in North Africa, Hannibal was recalled to defend the Carthaginian homeland. In 204, Scipio Africanus invaded North Africa and promptly annihilated a large army of Carthaginians and Numidians in a daring nighttime assault. The stage was set for a climactic showdown between Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. In 202 at the Battle of Zama , Hannibal was at last able to deploy war elephants against the Romans. But Scipio had developed tactics to minimize their effectiveness and Hannibal's young, untrained elephants did more damage to the Carthaginians than the Romans.

The battle was won when Scipio’s superior Numidian cavalry routed its Carthaginian counterpart and attacked the Carthaginian rear lines. While Roman losses in the battle numbered under 2,000; nearly ten times as many Carthaginians died. [ Zama Battle Schematic: Animated ]. Even as Hannibal attempted to regroup, Carthage sued for peace. The terms were onerous: Carthage agreed to surrender all territory outside Africa, to wage war only with Roman permission, and to pay a massive indemnity of 5,000 talents (later raised to 10,000) over fifty years. Carthage's empire and its military power were broken. Rome stood unchallenged as the most powerful state in the western Mediterranean. Article Nav The Second Punic War The Second Punic War 218 -202 BC At the end of the First Punic War in 241 BC, Carthage was besieged by its own army of mercenaries, whom they could no longer afford to pay due to the long war and large indemnity paid to the Romans.

After three years of brutal fighting, Hamilcar Barca finally managed to end the rebellion. But some of the mercenaries had earlier sailed to the island of Sardinia, and from there they raided Phoenician shipping. Carthage therefore sent a force in 238 BC to put a stop to the pirates. When Rome learned of this, they sent their own larger army to Sardinia to stop what they consider to be an a breach of their peace treaty. The Carthaginians had not prepared for this. They were forced to retreat, give Sardinia to the Romans and pay them even more money. Hamilcar , who had fought the Romans for many years, was enraged by the actions of the Romans. The Carthaginians council of elders was content to accept their losses and move on, but Hamilcar was not. Without much support from his own government, he decided in 236 to sail to Africa, and to use Carthage's last overseas territory as a base for his operations against the Romans. There, he would solidify Carthage's hold over the territory, as well as use its vast resources and manpower to attack Rome.

While subduing the territory, Hamilcar drowned in 229 BC. Hamilcar was succeeded by his sons, Hannibal and Hasdrubal . It was decided that Hannibal would lead half the army towards Rome, while Hasdrubal would remain in Spain with the other half. In 218 BC, Hannibal and his army, which consisted of nearly 100,000 men as well as several elephants, crossed the border of Spanish territory. The Romans, however, had not been entirely inactive since the last Punic War. They had been busy fighting with the Gauls, they had conquered two provinces in southern Gaul, and had used the Alps to their advantage to create a strong defense against a northern invasion into Italy. Hannibal and his army now had to cross through these defenses. While heading south, the Carthaginians were attacked both by the forbidding terrain as well mountain tribes loyal to the Romans. Sixty percent of Hannibal's army did not survive the crossing, including all of his elephants. After crossing the Alps, Hannibal was confronted by a superior Roman force of 60,000 men, which had been expecting his arrival.

They met at the famous battle of Cannae in 216 BC. Although outnumbered, Hannibal through superior tactics managed to surround the Romans and virtually destroy the entire army. Only 15,000 Romans survived the battle. The road lay open to Rome, but instead Hannibal marched past Rome and into southern Italy. He had lost much of his original army, and was reluctant to risk what was left in a direct assault upon Rome. Instead, he hoped to bolster his army with Italians, who he assumed would be anxious to overthrow their Romans rulers. He was wrong, however, and virtually none of the Italians revolted. So, the victorious Hannibal was a virtual prisoner in Roman Italy. During this time that Hannibal's army roamed across Italy, the Romans typically did very little to oppose him. They were led by Fabius Cunctator , who had been previously chosen twice as dictator. He was given the cognomen of "Cunctator", or "The Delayer", because he chose only to harass Hannibal's army and not directly oppose it. This policy did not apply to other arenas of battle, however. In 215 BC, the Sicilian city of Syracuse declared war against Rome.

A Roman army under the leadership of Claudius Marcellus was dispatched to destroy them. When they arrived at the city, they were quickly repulsed by a fabulous array of defenses, engineered by the mathematical genius Archimedes. Only after three years of besieging the town were the Romans able to take the city in a night time assault. Meanwhile, in Italy, Hannibal was still seeking desperately to augment his forces. He signed an alliance with Phillip of Macedon, but he was unable to help due to a Greek insurrection. Hasdrubal , Hannibal's brother, was his last hope for reinforcements. Hasdrubal began his journey into Italy. He evaded one army led by the soon to be famous Cornelius Scipio , but was defeated by another once in Italy. Even though Hannibal had been contained, the Roman people were still very much afraid. In 205 BC, the priests consulted the Sibylline Books, which seemed to say to bring the "mother of the gods" to Rome. Therefore, the Romans sent ambassadors to Phrygia (in Asia Minor) to bring a stone sacred to Cybele (called 'Magna Mater' by the Romans) to Rome.

The Romans, however, were shocked by the actions of this cult and quickly passed laws to regulate it. Little did the Romans know it, but their salvation was soon to come. Scipio , at the young age of 25, did not concern himself with fighting Hannibal in Italy. He instead marched into Spain and quickly conquered it. He then set sail for Africa in 204 BC. With an army of 30,000, he arrived in Africa and successfully encouraged the natives to revolt against Carthage. The Carthaginians, who had not actually been involved in the fighting, were forced to sue for peace. Learning of this, Hannibal was forced to sail back to Africa as best he could. When Hannibal arrived in Carthage, he gathered as large an army as he could and prepared to face Scipio . At the battle of Zama in 202 BC, Scipio defeated Hannibal , using tactics similar to those that the Carthaginian had previously used against the Romans. In the imposed peace following the battle, Carthage lost its entire empire to the Romans.

It also was forced to pay a great sum of money to the Romans, as well as surrender all of its remaining military forces. For all practical purposes, Carthage was now a tributary of the Roman empire.

Question: Which city did Rome destroy at the end of the Second Punic War?
Answer: Carthage